"How--how is that? Don't you think so?" he persisted kindly.

"I reckon you can't feel what I feel, Doctor. Why should I make his heart troubled when he must stay there? David knows I hate it to bide so long without him. He--he knows. If he could get to come back, don't you guess he'd come right quick, anyway? Would he come any sooner for his son than for me?" It was the doctor's turn for silence. She asked again, this time with a tremor in her voice. "You reckon he would, Doctor?"

"No! Of--of course not," he cried.

"Then what would be the use of telling him, only to trouble him?"

"He--he might like to think about him--you know--might like it."

"He said he must go to Africa in May, so now he must have started--and our wedding was on May-day. Now it's the last of May; he must be there.

He might be obliged to bide in that country a whole month--maybe two.

It's so far away, and his letters take so long to come! Doctor, are they fighting there now? Sometimes I wake in the night and think what if he should die away off there in that far place--"

"No, no. That's done. Not fighting, thank G.o.d. Rest your heart in peace.

Now, after I'm gone, don't stay up here alone too much. I'm a physician, and I know what's best for you."

She took the now soundly sleeping child from the doctor's arms and laid him on the bed in the canvas room. The day had been warm, and the fire was out in the great fireplace; the evening wind, light and cool, laden with sweet odors, swept through the cabin.

They talked late that night of Hoyle and his future, but never a word more of David. The old man thought he now understood her feeling, and respected it. She certainly had a right to one small weakness, this strong fair creature of the hills. Her husband must release himself from his absorbing cares and return simply for love of her--not at the call of his baby's wail.

So the doctor and his diminutive namesake drove contentedly away next morning in the great covered wagon, and Ca.s.sandra, standing by her mother's door, smiled and lifted her baby for one last embrace from his loving little uncle.

"I'm goin' to grow a big man, an' I'll teach him to make pictures--big ones," he called back.

"Yas, you'll do a heap. You bettah watch out to be right good and peart; that's what you bettah do."

David, not unmindful of affairs on the far-away mountain side, made it quite worth the while of the two cousins to stay on with the widow and run the small farm under Ca.s.sandra's directions, and she found herself fully occupied. She wrote David all the details: when and where things were planted--how the vines he had set on the hill slope were growing--how the pink rose he had brought from Hoke Belew's and planted by their threshold had grown to the top of the door, and had three sweet blossoms. She had shaken the petals of one between the pages of her letter on May-day, and sent it to remind him, she said.

Nearly a month later than he had intended to sail, David left England, overwhelmed with many small matters which seemed so great to his mother and sister, and burdened with duties imposed upon him by the realization that he had come into the possession of enormous wealth, more than he could comprehendingly estimate; and that he was now setting out to secure and prevent the loss of possibly double what he already possessed.

People gathered about him and presented him with worthy and unworthy opportunities for its disposal. They flocked to him in herds, with importunities and flatteries. The tower which he had built up with his ideals, and in which he had intrenched himself, was in danger of being undermined and toppled into ruins, burying his soul beneath the debris.

When seated on the deck, the rose petals dropped into his hand as he tore open Ca.s.sandra's letter. Some, ere he could catch them, were caught up and blown away into the sea.

He held them and inhaled their sweetness, and everything seemed to find its true value and proportion and to fall into its right place. Again on the mountain top, with Ca.s.sandra at his side, he viewed in a perspective of varying gradations his life, his aims, and his possessions.

The personality of his young wife, of late a vague thing to him, distant and fair, and haloed about with sweet memories dimly discerned like a dream that is past, presented itself to him all at once vivid and clear, as if he held her in his arms with her head on his breast.

He heard again her voice with its quaint inflections and lingering tones. Their love for each other loomed large, and became for him at once the one truly vital thing in all his share of the universe. Had his body been endowed with the wings of his soul, he would have left all and gone to her; but, alas for the restrictions of matter! he was gliding rapidly away and away, farther from the immediate attainment. Yet was his tower strengthened wherein he had intrenched himself with his ideals. The withered rose petals had brought him exaltation of purpose.

In the mountains, July came with unusually sultry heat, yet the rich pocket of soil, watered by its never failing stream, suffered little from the drought. Weeds grew apace, and Ca.s.sandra had much ado to hold her cousin Cotton Caswell, easy-going and thriftless, to his task of keeping the small farm in order.

For a long time now, Ca.s.sandra had avoided those moments of far-seeing and brooding. Had not David said he feared them for her? In these days of waiting, she dreaded lest they show her something to which she would rather remain blind. In the evenings, looking over the hilltops from her rock, visions came to her out of the changing mists, but she put them from her and calmed her breast with the babe on her bosom, and solaced her longing by keeping all in readiness for David's return. Perhaps at any moment, with wind-lifted hair and buoyant smile, he might come up the laurel path.

For this reason she preferred living in her own cabin home, and, that she might not be alone at night, Martha Caswell or her brother slept on a cot in the large cabin room, but Ca.s.sandra cared little for their company. They might come or not as they chose. She was never afraid now that she was strong again and baby was well.

One evening sitting thus, her babe lying asleep on her knees and her heart over the sea, something caused her to start from her revery and look away from the blue distance, toward the cabin. There, a few paces away, regarding her intently, stalwart and dark, handsome and eager, stood Frale. Much older he seemed, more reckless he appeared, yet still a youth in his undisciplined impulse. She sat pale as death, unable to move, in breathless amazement.

He smiled upon her out of the gathering dusk. For some minutes he had been regarding her, and the tumult within him had become riotous with long restraint. He came swiftly forward and, ere she could turn her head, his arms were about her, and his lips upon hers, and she felt herself pinioned in her chair--nor, for guarding her baby unhurt by his vehemence, could she use her hands to hold him from her; nor for the suffocating beating of her heart could she cry out; neither would her cry have availed, for there were none near to hear her.

"Stop, Frale! I am not yours; stop, Frale," she implored.

"Yas, you are mine," he said, in his low drawl, lifting his head to gaze in her face. "You gin me your promise. That doctah man, he done gone an'

lef' you all alone, and he ain't nevah goin' to come back to these here mountins."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands from the child on her knees, and, with sudden movement, pushed him violently; but he only held her closer, and it was as if she struggled against muscles of iron.

"Naw, you don't! I have you now, an' I won't nevah leave you go again."

He had not been drinking, yet he was like one drunken, so long had he brooded and waited.

Rapidly she tried to think how she might gain control over him, when, wakened by the struggle, the babe wailed out and he started to his feet, his hands clutching into his hair as if he were struck with sudden fear.

He had not noticed or given heed to what lay upon her knees, and the cry penetrated his heart like a knife.

A child! His child--that doctor's child? He hated the thought of it, and the old impulse to strike down anything or any creature that stood in his way seized him--the impulse that, unchecked, had made him a murderer. He could kill, kill! Ca.s.sandra gathered the little body to her heart and, standing still before him, looked into his eyes.

Instinctively she knew that only calmness and faith in his right action would give her the mastery now, and with a prayer in her heart she spoke quietly.

"How came you here, Frale? You wrote mother you'd gone to Texas." His figure relaxed, and his arms dropped, but still he bent forward and gazed eagerly into her eyes.

"I come back when I heered he war gone. I come back right soon. Cate Irwin's wife writ me 'at he war gone; an' now she done tol' me he ain't nevah goin' to come back to these here mountins. Ev'ybody on the mountins knows that. He jes' have fooled you-all that-a-way, makin' out to marry you whilst he war in bed, like he couldn' stand on his feet, an' then gittin' up an' goin' off this-a-way, an' bidin' nigh on to a year. We don't 'low our women to be done that-a-way, like they war pore white trash. I come back fer you like I promised, an' you done gin me your promise, too. I reckon you won't go back on that now." He stepped nearer, and she clasped the babe closer, but did not flinch.

"Yes, Frale, you promised, and I--I--promised--to save you from yourself--to be a good man; but you broke yours. You didn't repent, and you went on drinking, and--then you tried to kill an innocent man when he was alone and unarmed; like a coward you shot him. I called back my words from G.o.d; I gave them to the man I loved--promise for promise, Frale."

"Yas, and curse for curse. You cursed me, Ca.s.s." He made one more step forward, but she stood her ground and lifted one hand above her head, the gesture he so well remembered.

"Keep back, Frale. I did not curse you. I let you go free, and no one followed you. Go back--farther--farther--or I will do it now-- Oh, G.o.d--" He cowered, his arm before his eyes, and moved backward.

"Don't, Ca.s.s," he cried. For a moment she stood regally before him, her babe resting easily in the hollow of her arm. Then she slowly lowered her hand and spoke again, in quiet, distinct tones.

"Now, for that lie they have told you, I am going to my husband. I start to-morrow. He has sent me money to come to him. You tell that word all up and down the mountain side, wherever there bides one to hear."

She lifted her baby, pressing his little face to her cheek, and turning, walked slowly toward her cabin door.

"Ca.s.s," he called.

She paused. "Well, Frale?"

"Ca.s.s, you hev cursed me."

"No, Frale, it is the curse of Cain that rests on your soul. You brought it on you by your own hand. If you will live right and repent, Christ will take it off."

"Will you ask him for me, Ca.s.s? I sure hev lost you now--forever, Ca.s.s!"

"Yes, Frale. I'll ask him to cover up all this year out of your life. It has been full of mad badness. Be like you used to be, Frale, and leave off thinking on me this way. It is sin. Go marry somebody who can love you and care for you like you need, and come back here and do for mother like you used to. Giles Teasley can't pester you. He's half dead with his badness--drinking his own liquor."

She came to him, and, taking his hand, led him toward the laurel path.

"Go down to mother now, Frale, and have supper and sleep in your own bed, like no evil had ever come into your neart," she pleaded. "The good is in you, Frale. G.o.d sees it, and I see it. Heed to me, Frale.

Good-night."